Internet Telephony or Circuit Switched Telephony: Which Is Cheaper?

Telephony is an Internet application that has the potential to radically alter the telecommunications environment. This application may affect traditional regulatory structures, subsidy structures, business models, and so on. Today, users can transmit telephonelike voice traffic over the Internet at zero incremental price, unlike circuit switched telephony, which usually has a per-minute incremental price. This research was carried out to determine whether Internet telephony (Itel) was a fundamentally cheaper approach to the interoffice transmission and switching of voice, or whether the price difference was the result of an implicit regulatory subsidy.